In honor of the Hood Museum of Art’s 20th anniversary, the museum is presenting a major new exhibition, “Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art.” On view through May 29, this traveling exhibition highlights a stunning diversity of works dating from 1769 to 1969, many of which have never before been on view.

Nearly 120 works feature the talents of such distinguished artists as John Singleton Copley, John James Audubon, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Joseph Stella, Jackson Pollock, Eva Hesse and Romare Bearden. Taken as a whole, these drawings and watercolors reveal the rich variety of approaches, media and subjects that have attracted American artists over the course of two centuries. Highlights range from Copley’s magnificent 1769 pastel portrait of New Hampshire’s last royal governor, John Wentworth, to early Nineteenth Century folk portraits and landscapes, lyrical Nineteenth Century watercolor marines and interiors, dynamic images of New York City in the jazz age and purely abstract compositions by pioneering artists associated with Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism.

“Marks of Distinction” is the result of a multiyear research project and a concerted effort to strengthen the museum’s impressive holdings of American drawings and watercolors through gifts and purchases. The exhibition is accompanied by a 282-page illustrated catalog co-published with Hudson Hills Press. The publication provides an overview of the American collection by renowned art historian and former Dartmouth professor John Wilmerding; a history of the collection’s development by Barbara MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; in-depth scholarly entries on 80 of the museum’s most noteworthy American drawings and watercolors by Ms MacAdam, Mark Mitchell, Derrick Cartwright, Katherine Hart and Barbara Thompson; as well as illustrations of about 170 additional collection highlights.

There will be a lunchtime gallery talk on Tuesday, April 26, at 12:30 pm in the Second Floor Galleries. “‘Marks’ from the Perspective of Artist and Curator” will be presented by Ben Frank Moss, George Frederick Jewett Professor of Studio Art and Ms MacAdam,

There will be a lecture on Friday, April 29, at 4:30 pm in the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium. “Making Their Marks: Medium, Style and Status in American Nineteenth Century Watercolors and Drawings” will be presented by Kathleen A. Foster, The Robert L. McNeil Jr Curator of American Art and Director, Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Refreshments will follow in Kim Gallery.

A lunchtime gallery talk will also be presented on Tuesday, May 3, at 12:30 pm in the Second Floor Galleries. “Tarrying with the Grid: Works on Paper by Three Women Artists” will be the topic for Mary Coffey, assistant professor of art history.

On Friday, May 20, at 4:30 pm there will be a lecture in the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium entitled “Freedom Fighters: John Sloan and the American Moderns in the Dartmouth Collection” by Mark D. Mitchell, assistant curator of Nineteenth Century art, National Academy Museum, New York City. Refreshments will follow in Kim Gallery.

An introductory tour of “Marks of Distinction” will be offered Saturday, May 14, at 2 pm.

Following the exhibition’s debut at the Hood Museum of Art, approximately 80 of the works in “Marks of Distinction” will travel to the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, from June 24 to September 4, and the National Academy Museum in New York City, from October 20 to December 31.

The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm with evening hours on Wednesday until 9 pm; Sunday, noon to 5 pm. Admission is free. For information, 603-646-2808.